Outrage
I was reading an article on Coca-Cola in The Economist. Apparently they are receiving a lot of pressure from activist groups because their bottling plants in developing countries are depleting local water supplies, but something that I found particularly shocking is that it takes an average of 2.72 liters to produce 1 liter of Coca-Cola beverage. Phenomenally inefficient. This is putting an immediate end to the little soft-drink and bottled water sipping I once did. It is almost as shocking as my discovery of the inefficiency of meat (it takes an average of 10 calories of vegetable food to produce 1 calorie of meat food). So for now, consider me a strictly water-drinking vegetarian.
How many liters of water does it take to fill a 1.0 L water bottle? How many liters does it take to get 1.0 L from the tap? How many liters does it take to fill a 1.0 L cup with Coca-cola? Less than one (1 - syrup volume)?
Adam, if you really cared about undermining the ecosystem pyramid, you'd stop eating vegetables and converting them into meat.
Environmentalism is ineffective because of trickle down. Even if you buy only vegetables, the truckers, cashiers, stockers, managers, pickers, growers, testers, and advertisers who helped put those greens on your plate will buy all sorts of meats and environmentally destructive products. It's really much more efficient to kill a bunch of people or at least commit suicide.
It also takes 24 gallons of water (or about 192 lbs) to produce one pound of potatoes, and this is one of the most efficient foods in terms of amount of water used. If you really have such high standards of effeciency, then you might as well starve to death.
The ecological effects are indeed important to look at but to be honest, your health is probably a much more immediate issue in drinking sodas. There's just so much sugar, it's bad for your body and teeth especially. So, do it out of respect for the environment but also out of respect for health.
Besides, most people don't drink enough water anyway, it's a good habit to get in.
I agree about the health thing. Honestly I rarely drink soda anyway. In fact, I can't remember the last time I drank soda. Actually that's not true: I did become addicted to Diet Pepsi this summer because I needed the caffeine to help me stay awake until 2 or 3 AM. But since the start of school, I've only had water and a little juice.
Colin, I disagree with your argument. There are two factors that come into play. First is that my statistic simply looks at the water consumed in the process of actually bottling the beverage. This completely ignores the amount of water used to grow the sugar cane or sugar beets that were used to sweeten the beverage. It is a "first-level" assessment only. And secondly, while soda may still be even more "water-efficient" than virtually all solid food products, soda is a completely unnecessary beverage that is even detrimental to health, unlike basic, raw foods. It is a question of the necessity of the waste, not the quantity. I was simply shocked because I didn't realize how much waste there was in this process.
Adam, I disagree. Soda is much healthier than celery or lettuce, for example, both of which are unnecessary basic, raw foods.
Okay, I didn't realize that's what you were talking about. I guess I could argue that washing glasses takes up a lot of water too, but that would be stupid.
Now, I totally agree with you that soda is bad, and that many people drink too much. I drink it occasionally, but not regularly. But my point is that water efficiency is not a very good reason to base your food choices on, at when the numbers aren't that large. When it takes 5,000 or so gallons to produce one pound of food (like with most meats), then that is a decent reason.
Water is such a waste. You have to use one gallon of water to get a gallon of water with absolutely no calories.
A programmer friend of mine I work with recently moved to the Bay Area after living 5 years at http://www.dancingrabbit.org/
If you're really serious about this, I think you should consider spending your college years at DancingRabbit instead of caltech. -- it would also go a long way at reducing the economic impact necessary to support your college experience.
On a slightly unrelated note, how do you justify investmenting in companies that might not support your environmental values?